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Unlikely Trio on the Lam

Jim Jarmusch’s “Down by Law” would have been attention-getting for its casting alone. The three misfits at the center of the story, who find themselves in a New Orleans jail, are played by John Lurie, Tom Waits and Roberto Benigni. But what makes this odd comedy really distinctive is the black-and-white cinematography by Robby Muller. “We are seeing a true filmmaker at work,” wrote Vincent Canby, reviewing the movie in The New York Times in 1986, “using film to create a narrative that couldn’t exist on the stage or the printed page of a novel.”

The film is being shown on Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Museum of the Moving Image, part of its “See It Big!” series, which displays movies with noteworthy cinematography in the big-screen Sumner M. Redstone Theater.

The series also offers two other films that day. “The Night of the Hunter” (1955), directed by Charles Laughton, with cinematography by Stanley Cortez, will be screened at 4:30, followed at 7 by “Suspiria,” a bloody 1977 horror film by Dario Argento with Luciano Tovoli as cinematographer. Mr. Argento’s latest, “Argento’s Dracula 3D,” released in October, was a disaster, but early in his career the director was sometimes compared to Hitchcock. At 36-01 35th Avenue, Astoria, Queens; 718-777-6888.

A version of this article appears in print on December 15, 2013, on Page AR4 of the New York edition with the headline: Unlikely Trio On the Lam. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe